Abstract
I HOPE you will allow me to express through the medium of NATURE my concern at the proposal referred to in the leading article in the issue of February 19 to centralise in an Imperial Department the various scientific services in India—a policy which I believe to be likely to prove detrimental to good work. I was a member of the Indian Forest Department during the years 1871–99, so that my Indian experience is not very recent, but I have kept myself informed of what was going on. Since I left India research institutes have been established in different provinces with officers attached to them required to devote themselves to the study of scientific questions. In my opinion, it is of the utmost importance that these officers should have as free a hand as possible, and be allowed to work in their own way on the subjects which they know themselves most competent to study. If they are called upon to work under a centralised Department, and perhaps to turn from branches of study which they thoroughly understand to others in which they may have to begin by reading up, much of their time will be wasted and the results poor.
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GAMBLE, J. [Letters to Editor]. Nature 105, 6 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105006b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105006b0
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